the Court at Naples, in which city he continued upwards of five years in that mission; during also the residence of Pius IX. there, while a fugitive from Rome. On the marriage of the Conde de Montemolin, eldest son of Don Carlos, with a sister of the King of the two Sicilies, he demanded his passport, leaving his post, for which he received the approbation of his sovereign. Since his return to Spain, the Duke has been again appointed Vice-President of the Senate, but seems to have taken little part in public affairs.
Mr. Borrow, in his very amusing work, 'The Bible in Spain,' describes the Duke de Rivas, in 1836, as "a very handsome man;" and so his portraits represent him, agreeing with all the accounts of his personal appearance and courtly manners. Favoured by fortune with the possession of high rank and ample means, he has been still further favoured in his domestic relations, and with a large family, the solace of his age. We have thus traced him through life, distinguished, in every stage in which he has had to exert himself, for eminent ability as well as honourable conduct. As a soldier, engaged in the noblest of causes, the defence of his country, he showed himself conspicuous among the most active and bravest of her defenders. In public life, as an orator, a diplomatist and a statesman, he has proved equally eminent. In private life, he has been no less exemplary for the exercise of the domestic virtues, having in his needs exerted himself to discharge his duty to his family, by the practice of the talents with which he had been endowed, as an artist of superior proficiency. As a dramatist, his works have in that most difficult department gained the fullest success; and in poetry he is the only modern writer in Spain who has given the world a poem of the highest class, combining varied incidents with well drawn characters and a sustained
